Close to 4 million teenage girls are subjected to breast ironing worldwide. This harmful cultural practice, which is most prevalent in West and Central Africa, needs to stop.
Girls who marry early have limited education, health and income-earning opportunities.
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More than half of girls in South Sudan are married before the age of 18. Endemic conflict and food shortages are only exacerbating the problem.
In this 2012 photo, a midwife holds a newborn baby boy she has just delivered by flashlight in Guinea-Bissau. The African country is one of the deadliest places in the world to give birth, with a high rate of maternal death.
(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
It’s not just women in impoverished countries dying in childbirth. The maternal death rate in both Canada and the U.S. has risen, particularly among Indigenous and African-American women.
The movie Nour brings the issue of ‘child marriage’ on the front scene in Lebanon.
IMDB
Renewed attention is being given to the issue of child marriage in Lebanon as increasing numbers of young refugee girls are being married off as a response to the conflict and forced displacement.
Many girls in Dar es Salaam’s slums drop out of school because of the costs involved.
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Creating more opportunities for young women and girls to work and earn money is a possible solution to early marriages. Subsidising secondary education to keep poorer girls in school is another.
Wunderbar: same-sex marriage gets approval in Germany.
Marc Mueller/EPA
Bangladesh is a global poster child when it comes to improving women’s status in the developing and the Muslim worlds. But a recent amendment to the country’s marriage law threatens its progress.
Participants in the Finote Hiwot project to end child, early and forced marriage in Ethiopia.
Department for International Development/Jessica Lea
A number of African states are taking positive steps to combat violence against girls and child marriage. But social and cultural barriers can nullify national laws and strategies.
Girls are at greater risk of early marriage in refugee camps where their parents are unable to provided the necessary support.
Alia Haju/Reuters
Rates of child marriage increase among refugee communities, where rates of sexual violence are high and opportunities for families low.
Education can change girls’ lives: an extra year of education can raise a girl’s future wages by between 10% and 20%.
Albert González Farran – Unamid/Flickr
Education can be a powerful tool to stop the practice of child marriage. It empowers girls, and their success can ultimately boost their communities.
South Africa is taking a tough stance against the practice of abducting and forcing young girls into marriage that’s still rife in some parts of the country.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
The reasons for the phenomenon of child marriage are complex and include the fact that in customary law, marriageable age was never reckoned as an actual number but depended on puberty.
Singer and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Angelique Kidjo is part of the international lobby making progress against early marriage.
Reuters/Boris Heger
In a celebration of the rights of children, the 2014 Nobel Prize for Peace has been awarded to Malala Yousafzai, shot by the Taliban for going to school in Pakistan, and Kailash Satyarthi, who has been…